


To show you the stars

by ScalesCastOfIron



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29108100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScalesCastOfIron/pseuds/ScalesCastOfIron
Summary: All her life, Suvi has wanted to see the stars. Now, perhaps she’s found someone who understands.
Relationships: Suvi Anwar/Female Ryder | Sara
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	To show you the stars

“What are you doing out here, sweetheart?”

Suvi was eight, and she’d snuck out into the garden that evening armed only with a torch, a blanket, and her trusty teddy bear. She turned, looking up into her father’s worried eyes.

“I wanted to see the stars.”

He paused for a moment, leaning down to place one hand on her shoulder.

“Not tonight, love.”

“Why not?”

She was used to this. The stares from the other children at school for her doodles of spaceships, the deep sighs from the librarians when she asked if they’d had any more books on rocks, or fossils, or anatomy, _this_ time.

Her father chuckled slightly.

“It’s too cloudy tonight. You won’t be able to see anything up there. But we’ll do it tomorrow. Or the day after. As soon as it’s clear out.”

She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

It took three days for the skies to clear. On the third night, she and her father gathered armfuls of blankets and a flask of tea, and settled outside under the gnarled oak tree.

They were fainter than she’d hoped. Smaller. But once they’d been outside for long enough, and she’d waited for her eyes to adjust, she could start to pick each one out of the sky, lingering on each new constellation.

He’d told her the stories, and he pointed each of them out in turn. Orion the Hunter, with his belt. Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the big and little bears. And finally, barely visible, Andromeda. An entirely new galaxy.

“What are the constellations like over there? Will they have the same ones?”

Her father shook his head.

“No one knows, sweetheart. No one’s been there yet.”

She lifted her chin, puffing out her chest in defiance.

“ _I_ will. If no one else is going to. I’ll be the first.”

He laughed at that, ruffling her hair.

“If anyone can, you can. ‘Specially with that attitude. They’ll need people like you up there.”

They went back to that tree every weekend that summer. Her father bought her maps of the sky, and a small telescope, and they spent hours referencing, and cross-referencing, the sky.

*

“So, what next, _Doctor_ Anwar?”

She’d passed her doctorate. After years of study, months of writing and rewriting, and a three-hour grilling from what felt like half the department, she’d done it. Her research group had jumped on her as she’d left that room, and dragged her back to their office for the obligatory cheap champagne, congratulations, and debrief.

She thought, closing her eyes, trying to put her words into an order through the haze of exhaustion and fizz.

“I don’t know. I was so focused on getting here I… I’m not sure.”

“Come off it, Suve, we all knew you’d get here!” 

Clara, a tall blonde with a thick Geordie accent, grinned at her.

“So, nowt then? Academia? Industry? Just don’t go start a bakery or summat like that twat from Jenkins’ group, you hear me?”

Suvi smiled, shaking her head.

“Can’t bake for the life of me! But I guess… I don’t know how, but I’d like…”

She paused, swirling the champagne in the glass.

“I want to see the stars.”

One of the lads snorted into his drink.

“ _See the stars?_ What are you, five?”

The death glare from Clara would have stopped a rhino in its tracks. Suvi would miss that girl, more than anything else here.

Clara stood, raising one glass, pausing for the group to join her. 

“To Doctor Suvi Anwar. May you find the stars you deserve. And name one after us too, while you’re at it.”

**

“And what the _hell_ is wrong with New York, exactly?”

She’d been here a year now. A research post on a project going exactly nowhere. A windowless lab on the seventh floor of a skyscraper, staring at numbers that added up to nothing at all. And then back to a single bed in a cramped apartment with two roommates and a constant smell of damp. 

She’d met Hannah four months ago, queuing for tickets to a concert. Hannah was everything she wasn’t. Graceful, poised. Glamorous. Beautiful. Assertive. A city-dweller through and through. Her apartment was chrome, clean lines, a shiny metal testament to the city itself.

Suvi turned away, rummaging through the cupboards, trying to find the teabags Hannah had promised to buy, every time she’d visited over the last three weeks.

“Well?”

Hannah folded her arms, scowling, tapping one heel on the hard floor.

Suvi sighed, closing her eyes.

“It just doesn’t feel _real_ here, you know? It’s just… concrete. Buildings. People.”

“That’s what New York is, darling. It’s the _city._ It’s why people pay thousands to live here.”

Suvi shook her head slightly.

“But… that’s not…. I miss nature. I miss trees. I miss birds, and the way the air smells. I miss the stars on a clear night. There’s too much light pollution here. You’ll never be able to see them.”

Hannah snorted, rolling her eyes.

“Never thought I’d end up dating a _fucking hobbit._ ”

Suvi had cried in the cab all the way home after that. She stopped reading Hannah’s _I’m sorry you were upset_ non-apology texts, and packed her small collection of personal possessions into two cases that evening.

When the invitation to the Andromeda initiative landed in her email inbox three weeks later, she ran, and never looked back.

***

“Where are you taking me, Ryder?”

Sara laughed, that high, tinkling sound that always made her stomach flip over.

“It’s a surpriiiiiiiise!”

Suvi took Sara’s hand. Let her lead her through narrow, twisting corridors, and up ladders. Up to a small room, which Suvi guessed must be at the top of the ship.

In front of her, a large blanket lay spread in front of her. Two wine glasses sat at one end, next to a flask and a small pile of pillows.

“Get comfy!” 

Sara grabbed a pillow, tossing it gently at her, before opening the flask, and handing her what smelt like Angaran wine.

“It’s wonderful, Ryder. But what’s the occasion?”

Sara wrapped her arm around Suvi’s shoulders, lips gently meeting her cheek. Suvi could stay like this forever. Warm, safe. 

“SAM? Now.”

“Affirmative, Ryder.”

The metallic voice of SAM rang out around them. Suvi jumped, realising one moment too late that - the wine! - before feeling Sara’s hand, steadying hers. 

_That woman thinks of everything…_

Noise rang out around her. Something metal, whirring and grinding. With a click, the lights went out, plunging the room into darkness. She gasped, and felt Ryder’s arms curling around her, drawing her in. 

“Any second now…”

Suddenly, something pierced the darkness. Light. At first, one mass, blinding her. And then, as she looked, she saw it.

A thousand pinpricks of light. A thousand stars, forming constellations she’d never seen. As she watched, they moved around her, drifting in position, as the ship charted its course through the sky. 

“It’s…. Ryder, how did you… what did you...”

“No occasion, Suvi.”

Ryder drew her close, wrapping her arms around her.

“I just wanted to show you the stars.”


End file.
